Gas flowing from carb drain tube

[ronopolis]

I was taking my gas tank on/off last night trying to install a TrailTech Vapor. Needed to get to the wires.

I pushed the hose from the petcock onto the carb. I opened the petcock and gas started coming out of one of the carb drain tubes. Not gushing, but steady flow. This just all-of-a-sudden started happening. I've just put the bike back together (new top end) and I had cleaned the carb. It has been running for maybe 15 minutes total as I was testing everything, no problems.

But now the gas flows out. If this is a stuck float, what do I do? Do I have to take the carb off and apart and look? Can I gently bop it with a plastic hammer?? Or I read about a drain screw, but I don't know what that is, or where it is.

Any suggestions?

[Tedh98]

Did you adjust the float while you were cleaning it?

Tapping the bowl with the handle end of a screwdriver might free things up. If that doesn't do it, then I would pull the float bowl off and see if the float is hung-up on something.

[ronopolis]

I honestly didn't know enough to properly 'adjust' the float. I just cleaned everything and put it back like I found it. I'll try tapping, but that makes me worry it will just happen again. Most likely I guess I'll pull the carb and look. It seems like removing it could easily "free" it if stuck.

[bultaco4ever]

I would always suspect the float needle and the float needle seat. Use something like scotch brite scouring pad. Tear off a thumb nail size piece. Push it down in the needle seat area and scrub the seat clean. The surface of the seat (a circle) may have some varnish build up or some debris from yanking the fuel line on and off. Scrub the tip of the needle....gently on both tip and seat. Run a fuel filter in the future. While you have everything apart...get a can of carb cleaner and remove all jets and choke. Liberally spray the carb clean in each orifice and opening to blast out any debris.

[ronopolis]

I took the carb out, looked at the float/needle. It was clean, but I did the scotch-brite scrub, really cleaned up around the needle area. The surface of the seat did look different (brighter) after I cleaned it up. so maybe I did remove some debris.

Put it all back in and it seems fine now. Given that a few weeks ago I'd never seen the inside of a carb, I'm kinda' happy with this